The Cleveland Institute of Art – known, at least locally, as the CIA – grabbed the handle in the early years of Twitter in 2008 and tweeted information about exhibits, scholarships and jobs. But the account would get messages back about the Central Intelligence Agency. People would send everything from angry rants to tweets in foreign languages.

“We just deleted that one because it was kind of confusing,” Ms. Moore said. “Some people would mention us in their tweets and they were clearly thinking they were talking with the ‘real CIA,’ the Central Intelligence Agency.”

As a result of the hassle, the art institute quietly deleted the three-letter account. It now tweets as @CleInstituteArt.

Central Intelligence Agency spokesman Dean Boyd said the agency later secured the handle after someone else had grabbed it. The CIA then had to reclaim its handle from an individual who was impersonating the agency. The agency lodged a complaint earlier this year with Twitter to liberate the handle @CIA, which then handed the handle over to the CIA.

The @CIA handle was also confusing because the acronym is used to refer to the Culinary Institute of America, opening the art institute to inquiries about secret ingredients, too. That CIA tweets from @CIACulinary.

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